


Alfa

by caimani



Series: 31 Days of Halloween [14]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Investigations, M/M, Mystery, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caimani/pseuds/caimani
Summary: The biggest case Ryan and Shane have ever solved as deputies in their small town was finding a lost cat. But they're about to stumble across the most brutal slaughter the town has ever seen—something that leaves them both rattled and sends Ryan looking for answers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Day 16: Mysteries
> 
> I started this quite some time ago when I noticed that all the "Ryan and Shane are cops" stories I could find all had them as respected and capable officers. Here, they're dumbass deputies stuck on the night shift.
> 
> Also, HEED THE WARNINGS! There is a rather brutal crime scene described in the first chapter. Be careful.

At exactly 1:18 am on August 1, John Andrew Marshall called the Pleasantville sheriff's office. In the otherwise silent building, the sudden jarring ring woke up Shane from where he had been dozing and sent Ryan jumping to grab the nearest phone.

“This is the–” Ryan started, but was quickly cut off.

“Them damn kids’re still up an’ makin’ a ruckus!” Marshall practically yelled through the earpiece. “Y'all needa take em in. Make em sit in a cold cell for the night. Good folks are trying to get some sleep!”

Ryan sat back in his chair and held back a sigh that was threatening to come out. This again. “We can come over and tell them to keep it down, Mr. Marshall.”

“Y'all gotta lock em up!” Marshall said. “Them kids don't respect nobody! Gotta put the fear of God into em. Teach em a lesson!”

“We’ll do what we can, sir.” 

“Tell Sheriff what I said,” Marshall insisted. “She gotta take this into her own hands! They ain’t respect no deputies. Sure as hell don’t respect me!”

Ryan rubbed his forehead. “I’ll pass on the message. For now, we’ll take care of the noise.” He ended the call before the man on the other end could continue.

Resigned, Ryan took the patrol car keys out of the top desk drawer and then stood up. Across from him, Shane stared blearily up at Ryan. He made no move to get up, still reclined quite comfortably in his own chair.

“It’s almost one thirty,” Shane said. “They usually quiet down by then.”

Ryan finally let loose his sigh. “Yeah, but we might as well head over there. We told him we would–”

“– _you_ told him–”

“–and it’s not like there’s anything else going on.”

Shane gestured around them: at the vacant front desk, cluttered walls, rows of cabinets, and darkened windows separating Sheriff Valerie Carson’s office from the main office. The ceiling lamps cast a sleepy yellow light over everything. 

“Something could happen while we’re gone.” Shane said. 

Ryan scoffed, “What, like you falling asleep?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on,” Ryan said, instead of letting this debate go on any longer. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Ryan walked to the exit door and waited expectantly. Shane groaned, stretched, and eventually got up to shuffle over to the door. After letting him out, Ryan locked up and headed to the patrol car sitting outside the station. 

It was a cool night, so Ryan put the windows down as they left the lot. In the passenger seat, Shane was grumbling as he tried to adjust his seat. Ryan ignored him and focused on the road instead. For the most part, it was completely empty. As he drove down Main Street, they passed the Stone Kitchen, the only place in town that was open 24/7. The lights were on inside, but only two cars were parked outside it.

Soon after that, they left the yellow glow of the downtown street lamps and everything was dark and quiet. Ryan drove a bit faster once they were out of the downtown area, heading towards the area near the old quarry where John Marshall and a few other people lived. 

The road became narrower as they continued, and Ryan had to slow down to maneuver around a few deep potholes.

Shane suddenly spoke up, “Did you hear that someone saw a bear out here last week?”

“Shut up,” Ryan said immediately, hands involuntarily tightening on the wheel. He slowed down and glanced at the shadows on the sides of the roads a bit more.

“I know you don’t like bears,” Shane said. “I just want to make sure–”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Ryan said. “Shut up.”

“Just want to make sure you’re aware–”

“Look, we’ll just be out here for five minutes tops,” Ryan said. “Then we’ll be back at the station and you can sleep all you want until our shift’s over at seven.” 

Fuck, he really hated driving down these smaller roads at night. The woods on either side were fucking full of creepy looking shadows. And closing in on the tiny trailer park at the quarry, the road grew more winding and dangerous. Jesus, he hated this place. 

At least it was something they had done dozens of nights before. Coming to talk to John Marshall’s young neighbors, who would stay up late on weekends when their friends from college would come visit. Every time, this was an uneventful and pretty routine thing. Show up, tell them they had to be more mindful of the neighbors, check on Mr. Marshall, and then head back to the station.

As the road changed to gravel and Ryan pulled into the small trailer park, he noticed a conspicuous lack of music. Relief flooded through him. They pulled up to the trailer that was officially owned by Kevin Sellers but also shared with his two friends. The lights were off and it was quiet.

Shane got out of the car before Ryan did.

“See?” he said. “What did I tell you? All we had to do was wait.”

“Yeah, try telling that to John Marshall,” Ryan muttered under his breath. He glanced across the gravel road at the trailer on the other side, which was also silent. There was a single light on inside. 

“I don’t think we need to wake up Kevin and his friends,” Shane said. “We can leave a note for the guys in the morning, and they can decide whether there needs to be any follow-up.”

Ryan looked back at Sellers’s trailer. For some reason, something felt off. Probably just the fact that the routine had been broken…

“Well, let’s at least check on John,” he said. “Since we came all this way.”

“We don’t have to…” Shane said half-heartedly. “We could just go back.”

But Ryan was already making his way across the gravel road. He heard Shane follow soon after. He led the way up the three steps to John Marshall’s trailer.

“Mr. Marshall,” Ryan announced, knocking on the door. “It’s Deputy Bergara and Deputy Madej. Just making sure you’re alright.”

He braced himself for the regular response: John stomping over to his front door, complaining about how he wanted Kevin Sellers’s trailer towed to the far end of the park.

But that didn’t come. Ryan waited for a moment, and then knocked again. 

“Mr. Marshall? John?” 

Still no reply. There wasn’t even the sound of anybody moving inside. Ryan frowned and glanced at the window on the right side of the door. The curtains were wide open, probably because John had been glaring at his neighbors through the glass, but Ryan couldn’t see John on the couch. 

“He’s already asleep,” Shane said.

“I guess…” Ryan murmured. He squinted through the window on the left side.

Ryan froze. There was only a small patch of light that illuminated the left side of John Marshall’s trailer, but it was enough to reveal a large figure sprawled on the floor.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, backing away.

“What?” Shane said, leaning over Ryan’s shoulder to look. He drew in his breath sharply behind Ryan. 

Ryan was at a loss for words. He could only stare for a long moment, in disbelief that John–

“We need to get in there,” he said, his heart rate starting to pick up. John needed help, Ryan was pretty sure John had heart problems and the closest hospital was almost an hour away. He grabbed at the door handle, found it unlocked, and burst into the trailer. Ryan raced over to John Marshall, and fell to his knees beside the dark form.

And then his stomach dropped from his chest.

Ryan had gone fishing with his parents when he was a kid. It was a regular thing during the summer. He never liked being around when his mom started cleaning the fish. The viscera, it was called. The insides. The smell was unforgettable, and the sight made his stomach turn. 

John–what had been John only ten minutes earlier on the phone–had been eviscerated. To put it lightly. His chest had been torn open, his insides ripped and spread around him in a grisly display. Warm blood and body fluids were leaking out of him, pooling everywhere. Oh god, Ryan was touching it. He scrambled back in horror.

John’s _head_ –

Suddenly hands grabbed at Ryan’s shoulders. Ryan shrieked and flailed, but then heard Shane’s voice loud in his ear.

“I’m calling the sheriff,” he said. “Just… we gotta stay back, right? He’s…”

Fuck. Right. They had just ruined the crime scene–this was a _crime scene_. They… they didn’t know, and they ran in and probably messed with some crucial evidence…

God, Ryan had to tear his eyes away from John Marshall’s body, but… it was just so horrible that he couldn’t.

John Marshall’s head had been ripped completely off his body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sheriff Carson arrived twenty minutes after Shane’s call. By then he had gotten Ryan out of the house and found the roll of police tape in the patrol car. He had never actually used a roll of tape to surround a crime scene, but it was easy enough to figure out. By the time the sheriff rolled up in her patrol car, it actually looked like it was ready for her.

But considering the scene that awaited her, Shane doubted anyone would be ready to see that. 

Valerie Carson stepped out of her car and approached Shane. She was a rigid woman with gray in her hair and fifty years of laughter lines around her mouth and eyes. Tonight, the darkness made her face look more grim than she no doubt already was.

“You said he’d been killed.” she said. “He was dead when you got here?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said softly, motionless and probably still in shock.

Shane glanced from Ryan standing beside their patrol car, then to the open door of John Marshall’s trailer. 

“It’s really terrible in there,” he said. “We, uh, we didn’t know what was going on. We just saw him on the floor, so we went in. And we probably messed some things up.”

Sheriff Carson nodded. She took out her flashlight and clicked it on. “There’s a camera in my car,” she said. “Take pictures of everything. Including Marshall. I called Doctor Young on the way over, and he’ll be here as soon as he can.”

“Dr. Young?” Shane repeated. He was one of the few practicing medical doctors in town, basically the general practitioner of most of the thousand residents. He wasn't exactly experienced in crime scenes.

The sheriff grimaced. “Calling the coroner from Murray County is going to take too long. Plus, it’d mean Sheriff Pontes would be coming over here and making a mess of everything. No need for that. Dr. Young’s helped out on other cases like this.”

Shane didn’t think Pleasantville had ever had a case like this, but he didn’t have a chance to say so. Sheriff Carson was already ducking under the police tape and heading for the doorway of the trailer. Shane hurried to find the camera she had mentioned, and then he followed after her. Ryan, meanwhile, seemed to finally come to his senses, and he went back inside as well. As they crossed the threshold of the trailer, Sheriff Carson switched on another light to illuminate the scene.

Shane paused right at the edge of John Marshall’s kitchenette and dining room. In the light, it was even worse. It looked like someone had torn into John. Shane had no idea a person could be so forceful that they could rip a person’s head off. He couldn’t even imagine why…

Instead of thinking too hard about that, Shane turned his eyes to the screen of the camera, taking picture after picture. The body, the blood splattered everywhere. John’s table and chairs looked like they had been knocked aside, so he took pictures of those. There was a plethora of long, deep scrapes in the wooden floor. Shane took pictures of those too. 

The sheriff pointed to the back door. It was wide open. “Shane,” she said. She led the way outside, flicking on her flashlight and illuminating more of the deep scratches. Shane took more pictures, pausing while Sheriff Carson placed her hand next to one for a size comparison.

The scratches were almost as long as her palm. That… was incredibly concerning. Did a wild animal make those? Shane didn’t know if they were new or not, but they might be significant either way.

Sheriff Carson and Ryan pointed their flashlights at the woods at the back of John’s lot, but they didn’t see anything. Nothing but normal forest.

Ryan returned to John’s trailer, and Shane started to follow. Sheriff Carson, however, hesitated outside.

“Whoever did this might be out there,” she said.

That sent a chill through Shane. He looked back through the open door at John.

“We were talking to him right before,” Shane said. 

The sheriff looked at them with a question in her sharp eyes.

Shane waved at Ryan. “He–John–had called us with a noise complaint. We drove right over. It took about ten minutes.”

The sheriff looked even more grim. “So someone did all that and left… in ten minutes?”

Her words sat cold on Shane’s chest.

Ryan walked through the trailer and returned to the patrol car. Shane glanced at Sheriff Carson, who was back to examining John Marshall’s dining room. Then he followed after Ryan.

Shane returned the camera to the sheriff’s car and then leaned against the side of the other patrol car with Ryan.

In a very hollow voice, Ryan said, “I’ve got blood on my pants.”

Shane looked. There did seem to be a darker spot on Ryan’s knees. God, that really sucked. 

“I feel so… fuck, this is so fucked up,” Ryan groaned, rubbing his hand against his face. “Why–god, I hate this. I’ll never be able to get that out of my head. Why did I become a fucking deputy? I should have gone to film school.”

Shane couldn’t imagine how to start consoling him. The scene in there was something out of a nightmare. The sheer overkill was just unbelievable. 

He looked away from the trailer, at the opposite side of the gravel road. At Kevin Sellers’s trailer.

“Ryan!” Shane exclaimed. “The neighbors!”

Ryan blinked at him. Then his eyes lit up.

“They must have heard something!” he said. “Or even seen something!”

Ryan started hurrying for Kevin’s trailer door, and Shane followed close behind him. They hurried up the steps to Kevin’s porch. Ryan knocked eagerly, practically bouncing on his feet.

“Kevin Sellers!” Ryan said loudly. After there was no immediate response, he knocked again. “This is Deputy Bergara. I need to ask you some questions.”

There was a faint sound from within the trailer, and a moment later, the door was unlocked. Kevin stuck his head out, blinking back sleep.

“Huh?” he said.

“You were up about half an hour ago, correct?” Ryan said enthusiastically. “We need to know if you saw anything, or heard anything–”

“No, I wasn’t,” Kevin said.

“–especially, around Mr. Marshall’s–wait, what?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Kevin said, leaning his head against the doorframe. “I got off work at like… fucking late. I’ve been asleep since, uhh, whenever that was. Eleven?”

Ryan and Shane exchanged confused glances. “What about your friends?” Shane asked.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said. “Tyrone and Nate went to sleep when I got here. Said they would, anyway.”

“You… you weren’t having a party?” Ryan said. 

“No?” Kevin said slowly. He squinted at them, and then seemed to notice the extra car behind them. “What’s… is that the Sheriff? What’s going on?” He started to look more awake, eyes widening as he realized this wasn’t the usual late-night visit.

“Were you or your friends awake at one o’clock?” Ryan pressed. Shane glanced back and was relieved to see there was no way to see John’s dining room from over here. 

“No…” Kevin said. “Um. I was definitely asleep. When I got back, Tyrone and Nate both said they would go to sleep too. Keep it quiet and all. Is, uh, is Mr. Marshall okay?”

Ryan and Shane exchanged glances. “He’s–” Shane began.

“Thank you for answering,” Ryan interrupted. “If we need anything else, we’ll be back.”

Kevin didn’t look convinced at all, but he still shut the door. As Ryan and Shane walked away from the trailer, Shane heard Kevin’s voice talking inside.

Sheriff Carson was standing at the doorway to John Marshall’s trailer, arms crossed. When Ryan and Shane had returned, she nodded at Kevin’s trailer.

“I take it they didn’t notice anything?”

“No,” Shane said. 

She sighed. “We’ll wait for Dr. Young, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dr. Young didn't show up until after four. By that time, the sky was just starting to turn a lighter shade of blue, although the sun still hadn't come up yet. 

In the meantime, Sheriff Carson had started documenting everything, writing down Ryan and Shane's accounts of what they did and when it all happened. She went back into the trailer a few times, as well as out back. Ryan was perfectly content to remain outside. Every time he thought he was maybe starting to get over the shock, the image of John Marshall’s beheaded and disemboweled body resurfaced in his mind. For a while, he just sat in the front seat of the patrol car, trying to think of anything else.

At least Shane sat down with him. At least Ryan had someone with him, someone who had experienced the shock firsthand with him. He honestly didn’t want to be there anymore, but the sheriff hadn’t given any indication that they should return to the station yet.

Actually… shit. Now that Ryan thought about it, the killer might still be around. Ryan glanced up and squinted around at the darkness. Apart from the ever-present threat of bears and the occasional complaints between neighbors who had lived near each other for too long, he had always considered this area of town a really quiet place. Hell, the quarry in the summertime used to be his favorite hangout. 

It was so world-shattering that this had happened to the place.

Finally, Ryan heard the distant sound of a car. He and Shane got up as Dr. Young’s car pulled into the trailer park. Dr. Young parked just behind the patrol cars, turned off his engine, and slowly emerged from his car.

He looked tired. He grabbed a heavy-looking bag from his car and walked over to them.

“Which one?” he asked, looking from Sellers’ trailer to Marshall’s trailer, as if he couldn’t see the bright yellow police tape surrounding Marshall’s trailer. Then again it was dark, but honestly.

“This one is John’s,” Shane said, getting up and pulling the tape upwards so Dr. Young could go underneath easily. At that moment, the sheriff emerged from the trailer again. She took over, greeting Dr. Young with a handshake and walking him to the scene.

It was just as bad as before. Ryan had to look away, but he remained inside with everyone else. 

Dr. Young pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves from his bag and bent down to examine John Marshall. Ryan had to admit, he had once been interested in this kind of thing, this sort of crime scene investigation thing. But actually experiencing a doctor examining a dead man was much different. It involved a lot more physical contact and a lot less squinting through a magnifying glass.

At last, after a very long silence filled mostly with the wet sounds of Dr. Young poking parts of John Marshall’s body, he finally sighed.

“He was dead in seconds,” he pronounced. “The injury to his neck was what killed him, and the attack on his abdomen happened postmortem–see, the tearing here, and blood loss...” he trailed off for a moment, pointing at spots on John Marshall’s neck and head that made Ryan’s stomach churn unpleasantly. “Very fast, and inflicted with a lot of force. He probably didn’t even register the pain before he died. This–” Dr. Young indicated the mess of John’s abdomen, “was done afterwards. It seems like there’s a pretty simple explanation for it though: a bear attack.”

Ryan’s mind stopped. He didn’t hear what Dr. Young said next. 

The next thing he knew, Shane was carefully leading him down the steps towards the car.

“Come on,” he was saying. “I’ll drive to the station if–”

“Wait, what?” Ryan said, still half in a daze. He looked back up at the door to the trailer. It looked like Dr. Young and Sheriff Carson were still talking inside. 

Shane sighed and pushed Ryan towards the patrol car. “You kinda zoned out for a minute there. Sheriff said we should get back to the station and go home. She’s calling the morning shift in early.”

“Yeah…” Ryan muttered. He let Shane push him into the passenger seat of the car. Shane went to the driver’s side, and after moving the seat back, turned the key in the ignition. The hum and rumble of the engine was jarring after so much still silence.

Ryan stared outside the window as they drove back. 

“Sorry about the bear joke earlier,” Shane said a few minutes into the silence. “Although… no. Sorry.”

Ryan’s brow furrowed. His head was starting to clear up after his panic and he was beginning to turn Dr. Young’s words over in his mind. A bear… a bear did that? 

“It’s kind of weird though,” Shane continued. “I mean, if a bear got into his trailer, you think John would be able to escape it, don’t you? He’s not that old. Wasn’t he a logger? You’d think he’d know how to get away from a bear. And why would a bear even go up to the trailer? Smell of food maybe?”

Wheels were starting to turn in Ryan’s mind. He wasn’t sure yet, but… for now, he needed Shane to keep speculating. 

“And wouldn’t he yell out for help?”

It finally clicked in Ryan’s head. “Kevin…” he whispered.

“What?” Shane said.

Ryan turned very quickly in the seat to face Shane. “Kevin!” he said, louder this time. “John called us because he was tired of the noise from Kevin’s trailer! But Kevin said they were asleep the whole time! Those two things don’t add up!”

Shane’s face scrunched up in confusion. “You think… Kevin’s lying? Or… that Kevin and his friends did that?”

“No!” Ryan said. “Or–I don’t know. But if John was actually hearing Kevin, then why would Kevin lie to us about being asleep? If John wasn’t actually hearing Kevin, then what was he hearing? And… fuck.” His mind was racing with possibilities. “Whatever John was hearing, why didn’t Kevin and his friends hear it too?”

“Maybe… they were asleep?” Shane suggested. “I don’t know, they could be really deep sleepers?”

“But that makes you think that only John heard this noise,” Ryan said. “And it was similar enough to Kevin and his friends that he mistook it for them. But…” he trailed off. He wasn’t sure where to go next. 

“I think…” Shane said slowly. “John didn’t sound weird on the phone or anything, right?”

“No, he sounded normal,” Ryan said.

“Then he probably legitimately thought it was Kevin and his friends,” Shane concluded. “But… whatever it was… wait, but this was a bear.”

The conversation halted for a moment. They had reached the town and were starting to see early morning commuters stopping for gas and breakfast. As they stopped at a red light, Ryan glanced at the community center, which already had a poster up advertising activities for Halloween. 

“What if… what if it wasn’t a bear?” Ryan said at last. “But something else that could–”

“Oh, Ryan…”

“No! Hear me out! This is just a–”

“If you’re about to tell me you think Bigfoot–”

“What! No! Fuck you!”

“–killed John Marshall–”

“No!” Ryan said. “I’m saying this might be something that has, I don’t know, the strength of a bear, but it makes weird noises that–”

“That what, sound like a bunch of twenty-year-olds having a late night party?”

“Shut up! Fine, then what’s your explanation!”

Shane sputtered. “I don’t know! Kevin’s probably lying. Maybe he saw the bear and got scared–”

“The bear came in and left through Marshall’s back door–” Ryan pointed out smugly.

“Or maybe he heard John screaming.”

Ryan stopped. That… actually did sound likely. He thought about that for a moment. “But if he heard John yelling for help and being murdered, why didn’t he call in about it? The line was quiet all night, except for John’s call.”

Shane sighed. “I don’t know.”

Ryan leaned back in the seat. They were quickly approaching the station, but he felt like they still had so much to talk about. 

“I think we need to talk to Kevin and his friends again,” Ryan said finally, as Shane pulled into the lot. “The sooner the better.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Earlier that evening, all Shane could think of was how tired he was and how much he wanted to get home and sleep. Lately, he had been having trouble sleeping because two different families moving into his building didn't realize there was a night shift employee living there. 

The whole situation at John Marshall's home had left him slightly dazed but very awake. 

After he and Ryan left the patrol car at the station, they got in their own cars and drove to Rigo’s Grill. Ryan ordered a loaded breakfast burrito, Shane ordered the huevos rancheros; then they both sat down with their coffees in a corner.

For a few long minutes, neither of them spoke. It left Shane’s attention to drift to the other people in the restaurant: a couple of early bird old folks who were chatting animatedly with the waitress. They were so calm, so casual. Compared to them, Shane and Ryan probably looked haunted. 

“How long do you think it'll be before everyone knows?” Shane asked, finally breaking the silence.

Ryan took a slow drink of his coffee and sighed. “By tonight, maybe? I mean, John's neighbors know something's happened, but if Sheriff Carson can keep a lid on the details…”

Shane thought about that. The sheriff would want to at least keep the specifics away from people, but it was also her duty to warn the people about a bear, especially if it was going around attacking people in their own homes.

“The sheriff will at least have to warn people about the bear,” Shane pointed out.

Ryan’s face fell with annoyance again. “Shane, I fucking told you this–that couldn’t have been a bear.”

Shane leaned back in his seat. “Have you seen a bear attack before?”

“No, but I’ve seen pictures of–they’re ferocious and they’ve got their teeth and claws–”

“If a bear was big and angry enough, do you think it could–”

“God, I don’t want to start this again,” Ryan said with a groan. “Fine, for now, we’ll say that might have been a bear.”

Shane smiled at that small victory. “Alright. So when we go talk to Kevin, we’ll ask him if he heard anything last night. Try and figure out what it is he’s hiding.”

Ryan sighed again. “Yeah, fine. Then I’m going to show you pictures of fucking bear attacks so I can convince you there’s something weird about this.”

After breakfast, Shane drove his car back along the route to the trailer park. It felt much less dangerous in the daylight, although Shane kept his eye out for anything lurking along the road. He was pretty sure bears tended to avoid roads, but if it was quiet and empty enough, they might cross. Just like deer and other animals.

He didn’t see anything the entire way, and soon, he and Ryan were each stepping out of their cars a short distance from Kevin’s trailer. The tape was gone, and so was the sheriff’s patrol car. John’s body must have finally been taken out. 

Kevin and Tyrone were both sitting on the steps of their trailer, smoking. They made no effort to get up as Shane and Ryan approached.

Shane paused. The two young men looked shaken. 

“Hey,” Kevin said hollowly. “We, um. We saw them take the body out. Mr. Marshall’s dead?”

For a moment, Shane feared that they saw the brutal mess that John had become, but then he remembered. Body bags. 

“Yeah, it was–” Shane started. 

“It was weird,” Ryan interrupted. “We got a call from him about some noises he was hearing, but by the time we got here, he had passed away.”

Kevin and Tyrone exchanged nervous glances. 

“That must’ve been creepy,” Tyrone said. “Was it, uh, natural causes? Or a fall?”

“We’re going to get the coroner to confirm what happened,” Ryan said before Shane could say anything. Shane looked quizzically down at Ryan. Weren’t they supposed to mention the bear at some point?

“Kevin, you said earlier that all of you were asleep and quiet last night,” Ryan said. “Around one AM? You’d all gone to sleep?”

Kevin crushed his cigarette butt into an empty flowerpot. “Yeah, uh, I only woke up when you guys knocked on the door. Pretty sure if Tyrone and Nate were up and doing anything, I’d have heard em.”

Tyrone nodded slowly. “I went to sleep a little after Kevin. Nate was still up when I went to my room, so, I don’t know. I’m a heavy sleeper though.”

“Is Nate still here?” Shane asked. 

Tyrone nodded again. “Yeah, he’s in the kitchen.”

“One more thing,” Shane said. “Have either of you seen a bear around here?”

Ryan smacked Shane in the leg as he said it. 

Tyrone and Kevin looked at each other with confusion.

“I haven’t,” Tyrone said. “But I’ve heard a couple of people have been seeing things. Half-eaten animals and damage to fences. And… hey, didn’t Mr. Marshall say something about that the other day?”

Shane felt his heart leap. “Mr. Marshall saw the bear?”

Kevin was staring blankly at Tyrone, so Tyrone kept going. “Remember? It was when we were bringing in the groceries. He was on the phone with someone complaining about how–”

Kevin’s eyes suddenly lit up. “His garden,” he said.

“Yeah!” Tyrone said. “Saying his garden got stomped all over during the night. Shit, that was yesterday.”

Shane tried to catch Ryan’s eye, but the other deputy was being stubborn. “Thanks for all your help,” Shane said. “If we need anything else, we’ll be back.”

“And do you mind asking Nate to come out so we can talk with him too?” Ryan added.

Kevin and Tyrone agreed and went inside. Soon after, Nate stepped out.

Nate wouldn’t meet either of their faces. He stood to the side, shrinking in on himself. Ryan immediately picked up on this and repositioned himself to appear less threatening. Shane, not sure what to do with himself, moved to stand behind Ryan like a big shadow.

“Nate,” Ryan said carefully. “Did you see, or hear, anything last night?”

Nate started rubbing his hands together and looking from side to side. “I… I don’t know.”

That was probably a yes. 

“Were you awake at one AM?” Shane asked.

After a pause, Nate nodded. “I went to my room, but I just couldn’t fall asleep. I was listening to music for a while, then I started just doing whatever on the internet. Reading Wikipedia and shit. I, uh…” he gritted his teeth and rubbed fiercely at his face. “Maybe around one o’clock, I started hearing… fuck.”

“A noise?” Ryan prompted.

Nate looked very uncomfortable and unsure. “It was like… you know that kind of humming noise that electricity makes? Or like–like a helicopter, but not as loud as that. It was… fuck, I don’t know how to describe it. But it was like this really intense humming noise. I thought it was my laptop at first, so I turned it off. But the noise kept on going and… you know, maybe I just imagined it–”

“No, it’s okay,” Ryan said.

Nate wrung his hands. “You’re gonna think I’m crazy. I didn’t want to tell Tyrone and Kevin…”

“We won’t think you’re crazy,” Ryan said. “We just want to try and figure out what was making the noise that Mr. Marshall heard.”

Nate inhaled shakily. “I, ok, when you live out here, you hear noises, right? Fuckin’ forest noises. All of that was covered up by whatever this was. Like, the noise completely replaced it. For a moment, I, um. I thought it was a UFO so–”

Shane covered his mouth quickly to keep from laughing out loud at that. Ryan kicked at his leg, so he must not have been successful in hiding it. 

Nate, however, was still talking. “I looked out the window and I saw this huge shadowy… thing. Moving kinda slow. Like, I don’t know, like a bear, maybe? But when I moved to try and see it better, it stopped and turned to look at me. As if it knew I was looking. And that, uh, that freaked me out, so I hid below the window. And right as I did, the noise stopped. I was fucking terrified and I stayed down there for a while. I just stayed down there hiding until someone knocked on the door. You guys.”

Ryan nodded slowly the entire time Nate was talking. At the conclusion, Shane was quiet, considering what Nate had said.

A bear. Well, that’s enough confirmation. An insomniac Nate saw a bear and his mind probably hyped it up to worse than it actually was. That happened all the time with witnesses to a traumatic event.

“Thank you for telling us,” Ryan said. “We’re looking into this–”

“Did… did that… whatever it was… did that kill Mr. Marshall?” Nate said in a small voice.

“We’re not sure,” Ryan said carefully. “We need to look into a few more things.”

Ryan turned and started walking away. Not towards their cars, which would have made sense, but towards John Marshall’s trailer. Shane paused awkwardly, but Nate was already going back inside, so there wasn’t much else to do. 

Shane followed Ryan. They ended up walking around the trailer to the back. The back door had been taped over by a plastic sheet. Shane peered at the deep gouges in the stairs from the back door to the dirt. They looked pretty terrifying. The sooner that bear was found and moved, the safer they’d all be.

Ryan was looking at the scratches too, and then he moved on to the tiny garden patch. It sure looked like something had been in here. Flies were buzzing around the demolished vegetables. Yuck.


	3. Chapter 3

Ryan needed more coffee. He needed to hurry home and start working on developing a case file. He needed to stop by the station first so he could ask the sheriff for the other details. He needed to stop by the Peace Church Funeral Home after that, since it was the only place in town that had a functioning morgue. He needed to get his computer and do some research on… what, he wasn’t sure. Monsters? Cryptids? 

He needed…

“Well, I think that confirms it was a bear.”

He needed to get rid of Shane. The other deputy was helpful while talking to John’s neighbors, but he was unnecessary from this point on.

But before all that, Ryan really wanted to do something about Shane’s smug attitude.

“I don’t know if you just didn’t listen to what Nate said, or if you’re really that desperate to end this case,” Ryan started. “But that confirmed–”

“He said it was a bear!” Shane exclaimed.

“No, he said it might have been a bear,” Ryan said. “And what kind of bear makes a noise like a helicopter?”

Shane was stubborn. “He said it was an electrical hum. He lives in a trailer that has electricity. Surrounded by other trailers with electricity. Could have been a power surge. It was just been a coincidence that he heard the sound while looking into the woods, which by the way, are full of shadows at night–”

“Oh, you’re so full of bullshit,” Ryan said hotly. “There’s no way a bear did that to John Marshall.”

“Are you still thinking some kind of, I don’t know, monster that lurks in the dark, did this? Or are you changing your story to aliens now?”

It actually could be aliens… Unfortunately, Ryan was quiet for too long considering that.

Shane threw his hands up in defeat. “Whatever, you can think this is whatever you want. But it’s a bear. It’s a tragedy, and we need to warn the residents that they should be careful at night.”

Ryan scoffed and started walking away. He didn’t need to deal with Shane any longer if he was going to be like this.

He got in his car and started driving without another word. He needed to get some answers and soon.

His first stop was the Stone Kitchen for an extra large coffee to go. 

Second stop was the station. Sheriff Carson was in her office and Luis, one of the day shift guys, was lounging by the phone.

Luis gave him a confused look. “Ryan,” he said. “You forgot something?”

“No, just, uh, just checking on the John Marshall case with the sheriff.”

“Ah,” Luis made a face. “Yeah, she had me move his body to Peace Funeral Home. That’s some nasty stuff. Can’t imagine what it was like finding that. Bear attack, huh?”

Ryan held his tongue. No need to start this debate with Luis. He was very much a small town deputy, most experienced with settling disputes between neighbors and controlling the “crowd” at the July 4th community picnic. 

“Yeah, I just, uh,” Ryan searched for the right thing to say. “Just want to make sure the sheriff’s got all the information she wants from me. Since me–and Madej–were the ones to, uh.”

“Yeah, man,” Luis waved his hand at Sheriff Carson’s office. “I think she’s been dealing with it all morning. Been trying to get ahold of his relatives, last I heard.”

Ryan nodded and tried not to hurry to the office. He tapped on the glass door and she looked up and waved him in.

“Well,” she said as he shut the door behind him. “I finally got John’s brother. He’s… well, he was not close with John anymore. I don’t know when he’s going to make it over here to figure out what he’ll do about a funeral and settling John’s estate…”

Right. She had to deal with this business first. Ryan nodded. “Did, um, did you tell him how–”

Sheriff Carson nodded. “He said he wasn’t surprised a bear got him. I still think it’s brutal… how that bear…” she trailed off and for a beautiful moment, Ryan imagined the next thing she would say was ‘I can’t believe a bear could do all that.’ 

But instead, she said, “I think we might have to organize a hunt for that bear. There’s a lot of folks who live in more remote areas around here. It’s pure chance that you were checking on John when that happened… It might have taken days for this to be noticed.”

“Yeah…” Ryan said.

“I’ve got Deputy Brown and Deputy Dressler checking on the rest of the people living way out in the country,” she added, rubbing her head. “I know I’ve got to get the word out, but… god, I don’t want panic. I’m going to get someone from the Buzz over here later to work out how to announce this, and ask for volunteers to hunt it down.”

Ryan paled at the notion of having to be a part of that hunt. Sheriff Carson noticed and chuckled. “Oh, you and Madej don’t have to show up. You guys are my night crew. At night… just try and stay indoors. Maybe go on a couple patrols to make sure everyone else is keeping indoors.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Uh, so Dr. Young was sure about… I mean, are we getting a police coroner to–” 

The sheriff shook her head. “No need to bring the coroner from Murray over. That'd just bring their guys over and I don't want John to be made into a spectacle. We can handle a simple bear hunt.”

Ryan nodded slowly. Alright. So she didn't think anything was off, but at least they wouldn't be dealing with Murray's considerably large police force ruining the investigation. Ryan's investigation. 

He was going to have to get his hands on the photos from the scene that night when he came in to work later, then. Fuck, that put a dent in the start of his investigation. 

But if he was lucky, he’d be able to talk to the mortician at Peace Church Funeral Home. He didn't want to see the body, but the mortician might agree with Ryan that the damage couldn't have been done by an ordinary bear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane was very tired. The adrenaline rush and sinking dread that followed finding John had long since worn off. He was perfectly content to let Ryan charge off. He had just lingered around John’s trailer for a few minutes, looking at the bear tracks in the damp soil of the garden. 

Right as he was about to leave, however, John’s other neighbor stepped out of her trailer. She was still dressed in her pajamas with a pair of pink slippers on.

Shane forced a pleasant smile onto his face. He had never met John’s other neighbors, but seeing as how there were seven other trailers in the park, it stood to reason that there were others who had noticed the police presence that morning. 

“You’re here about that bear?” she demanded as soon as she was close enough to talk.

Shane blinked. He had assumed the woman would start by asking about John. Maybe she hadn’t heard the news yet. 

“Yeah, sort of,” Shane said. 

“That thing is a menace,” she said. “Two nights ago, it went and broke my damn fence. Crushed my flowers. Left the garden alone, thank god, but my rose bushes will never be the same.”

“Guess bears hate flowers,” Shane muttered to himself. The woman didn’t look amused. 

“The sheriff needs to get rid of that,” she said. “Before it hurts someone.”

Shane nodded. At this point, it would be a great moment to comment that it already had hurt someone and no doubt the sheriff was planning on doing something about it as they spoke.

But that would invite more conversation, which would mean he would have to spend even longer out here in bear country. 

“I'll talk to her,” he said, having absolutely no intention of doing so. The sheriff was well aware of the situation. One broken fence wasn't really noteworthy considering they already had a disemboweled and beheaded man. 

He nodded his head politely at John's neighbor and she shuffled back to her trailer. 

Shane left then, driving straight home. Following Ryan around all morning had kept him up much later than he usually would be awake. Ugh. How exhausting. Hopefully Ryan would calm down about this bear by the time they had to work together that night. Night shift was supposed to be slow and easy, and for the most part, he and Ryan passed the time by talking about things. Shane had already heard plenty of Ryan’s conspiracy theories ever since he joined as a deputy almost a year ago. Made him wonder if the last night shift guy left because they were tired of listening to Ryan talk about unsolved celebrity murders.

The small brick apartment building was already bustling when Shane finally pulled into his usual parking space. He headed up to his apartment, shut the front door behind him to block out the noise of other residents’ morning activity, and finally changed out of his uniform and got ready for bed. 

Then he collapsed into bed and was asleep in minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok I have a bit more written of this which I will post soon, but future chapters after that may be slow, since I work full time and Im writing other things this month. Im doing my best, I promise
> 
> also, they will get together eventually. its gonna be a bit slow


	4. Chapter 4

Ryan pulled into the parking lot of the Peace Church Funeral Home, stopped his car, and sat still for a while. He felt like he had been awake for two days at least. And… now that he was here, he wasn't sure if he even wanted to see the body again. 

The memory of seeing that would probably be burned into his mind forever. But that was the reason he couldn't just leave this how it was. There was something dangerous out there, and it wasn't an average bear. 

He had to get his facts straight before the wrong kind of fear and panic spread through the town.

Ryan got out of the car and shut the door behind him. He stood there for a moment, building up his confidence again. Knowing that he should do this and wanting to see John's body again were two very different things.

Reminding himself that this was for the greater good, he walked up to the door and pushed it open. The reception area was dimly lit, and nobody was at the front desk. Ryan hesitated. It wasn't abnormal that people weren't always ready to greet customers or visitors–this was a small town–but he wasn't sure where else to go. He’d never been in here before.

He could hear someone’s voice coming faintly from a nearby room, so he followed the sound. 

Ryan made his way down a hallway and eventually to a room that looked like the smallest morgue in the world. He'd only ever seen them on television and in movies, but this one was tiny. It was cramped and there was only one table, which John was lying on. He was still inside the body bag, but the zipper was partially opened. Ryan grimaced upon seeing how John’s head had just been placed above his body. His neck was truly shredded, the bones and skin and flesh all ripped apart. 

The mortician had her back to Ryan. She still hadn't noticed him, so he cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me.”

She jumped and turned around immediately. She was wearing a bright orange T-shirt with a name tag sticker attached that said MISS KATIE. That seemed kind of odd, Ryan thought.

“Oh thank god,” she said. “One of these days, I’m sure one of these guys are gonna start talking back to me.” She gestured at John’s body behind her. “Pretty sure he couldn’t, but–”

Ryan laughed nervously. “Yeah, uh, no, I’m alive. I, um, I actually wanted to talk with you about him. I’m Deputy Bergara, with the sheriff–”

“Well, I haven’t had time to do much with him,” Katie said apologetically. “I was just going to get him cleaned up a bit and in the locker until the Sheriff gets back to me on how his family wants him for the funeral. Does she know already?”

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Ryan admitted. This was the delicate part, because Sheriff Carson technically didn’t know he was here. And if the mortician told the sheriff when she came back, she might ask him what he was doing, or tell him to leave things alone. “She’s working on it.”

“Well, no rush,” Katie said. “Technically I need to wait until I have official confirmation of his death from… I guess Dr. Young? But…” she trailed off with a guilty smile. “Vacation Bible School at the church is this week, and I already committed to running it. There hasn’t been a death in town for ten months, you know. If the family wants him embalmed, I can do it, no problem, but I’d rather work on that in the evening, maybe later this week.”

Ryan nodded, feeling relief rush through him. “Yeah, that makes sense. Hopefully that’ll work out for you.”

“So what are you here for?” she asked, turning back to John’s body. “You don’t mind if I keep working, do you?”

“Uh…” Ryan quickly looked away from John’s body. “No, I just wanted to… I guess, hear your opinion? On, you know, his injuries.”

“Well, I’m not really a doctor,” she said. “But, personally….” she sighed and shook her head. “If his family wants to view his body, I’m going to have to do a lot of reconstructive surgery. I can’t exactly make his neck look whole again, but I’m putting him in a suit, then I can make things look better. All these cuts on his face–I’m guessing a bear did those, although they’re awfully deep.” She paused for a moment and Ryan took another uncomfortable glance at John’s face. 

“Strange that there’s so much on his face,” Katie murmured. “I don’t know, a couple years back, I fixed up a lady who died from a rabid dog attack. Her arms got the worst of it–trying to cover her body. Look, this looks like the bear clawed at him upwards.” She carefully touched one of the deep scrapes on John’s jaw. 

“That’s… strange…?” Ryan said, phrasing it as a question without entirely meaning to. 

“Well, you’d think people would cover their neck and face if something’s coming at them,” she said, raising her arms up to demonstrate. Ryan nodded, but he was asking more about the other thing she had been talking about. Katie meanwhile had gently moved the body bag open more to point at John’s arm. “Maybe the bear got him by surprise and he didn’t have a chance to protect himself?”

“Maybe.” Ryan said. He was starting to see more and more flaws in the bear theory. “Is there a significance in the direction of the cuts?” 

Katie shrugged. “Oh, probably not.” She covered John’s torso again. Ryan was about to ask something else when suddenly the phone on the table rang, making them both jump. 

“That’s probably Dr. Young,” Katie said cheerily, walking over to the phone. “That’s nice, I can get the death certificate finished before I have to leave.” She paused before she picked up the phone. “Sorry, I can get back to you once I take this call–”

“No, that’s okay, I’m good,” Ryan said, starting to back out of the room. “Thanks for your time.”

Katie nodded and turned away to answer the call.

Ryan walked out of the room and out of the funeral home. It really wasn’t a terribly big place, he realized as he left. There was the reception area, a few storerooms, the morgue, and the side door that led to the church. Small town, small funeral home.

Ryan returned to his car and leaned back with a sigh. 

“Dr. Young is just going to tell me it was a bear attack,” he said to himself. He stared at the entrance to the funeral home for a minute. He was really starting to feel tired, but there was still so much work to do. Research large animals around here, build a timeline, make a map of the area, put together a list of people to talk to...

He should get home. He could wake up early and work on developing a theory after he had some time to rest and think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane ambled into the sheriff's office right on time. Ryan was already inside at his desk, writing on some papers with a closed manilla folder in front of him. There was only one guy still in there from evening shift, who looked bored and tired. Upon seeing Shane, Deputy Stine got up and grabbed his jacket.

“Heard about last night, Madej,” he said. “Already told Bergara about Sheriff’s plan for how to break it to the town.”

Shane made a face. Right. Ugh, hopefully that hadn’t happened yet. He had every intention of spending the entire evening inside the building. He didn’t want to spend half the night driving out to deal with every terrified person hearing noises outside their homes. 

Stine clapped a hand on Shane’s shoulder as he left the office. 

Shane sighed and sat down in the desk across from Ryan. He glanced at the papers Ryan was working on. Then he blinked and stared at them a little more.

It looked like… a case file.

Shane leaned over the space to peer more closely at it. Ryan looked up at him for a second and then went back to his work.

“What is that?” Shane said.

“Work, obviously,” Ryan said.

“Is that something new?” Shane said. It probably wasn’t. Well, not anything newer than last night. They didn’t exactly get a lot of cases in Pleasantville.

Ryan bit his lip. “It’s the John Marshall case,” he said.

“What case?” Shane said. “Is it the plan for dealing with the bear?”

Ryan twitched. “You heard what Nate said. No fucking way that was a bear. And after I left this morning, I went to the funeral home–”

Shane groaned. “Don’t tell me you went to stare at the man’s body,” he said. “Look–”

“Shane,” Ryan said insistently. “A bear did not break into John Marshall’s home, eviscerate him, rip his head off, and leave all before we got there.”

Shane crossed his arms. “It could have happened. What’s your other theory?”

Ryan looked down, his mouth twisted in concentration. “I’m working on that. I’ve been doing some research.”

Shane sighed. 

“Actually,” Ryan said, standing up from the desk. “Now that Stine’s gone, I need to get into the office to see the Sheriff’s notes.”

Shane groaned. “If you weren’t a deputy, you’d probably be arrested for trespassing at some point,” he muttered. 

“I mean, this pertains to important current events in Pleasantville,” Ryan said. “I’m getting a better picture of what happened, so we can inform the public better.”

Shane sighed. Whatever. Ryan would probably get tired of this soon. 

“Stine told you about the Sheriff’s plan for this whole thing?” he asked as he followed Ryan into the office.

“Yeah, she worked out a story with the newspaper. Warning that there’s a dangerous… bear… and that people should stay indoors. The day after tomorrow, they’re getting people together to try and hunt it down. She figures fast action is the key to keeping people from panicking.”

“Sounds good,” Shane said. He stood behind Ryan as he moved carefully through the papers on top of the desk. There was only one other folder on the desk, something that looked like a civil dispute. 

Ryan took the folder beneath that one and brought it back out to the main room. Shane moved his chair so he could sit next to Ryan and look at what he was doing. Not like there was anything else going on.

It looked like Ryan had written a pretty thorough account of what had happened last night. There was also a report of what Nate and his friends said in their unofficial interview. Shane made a face at how much detail Ryan had included from Nate’s story, but that was to be expected from Ryan, honestly.

The Sheriff had a very professional report on the other hand. It didn’t look like she had conducted any interviews, apart from her official report from Dr. Young. That didn’t really count though. There was an official press statement typed out, which Shane expected would be in tomorrow morning’s newspaper. 

Ryan started moving through his papers. Some of them looked like references on bears and bear attacks.

“Alright, Ryan,” Shane said. As obsessed as Ryan was over this not being a bear, he usually was pretty smart about researching and presenting educated theories on things. Even if they were obscure conspiracy theories, most of them at least made some kind of sense. 

Ryan glanced at him. “What?”

“What are your ideas? What other animals–or people–could have done something like to John Marshall?”

Ryan’s eyes lit up and it lifted something in Shane’s chest, easing some of the tension that he had noticed had been growing between them since the previous night. 

“Well,” he said, moving to his manilla folder. “If we’re going with the animal theory, then a bear could have done the mutilation, but I’m not sure it could, uh, take John’s head off. That’s the one detail that just makes me confused. Because, that almost feels like personal rage against John, and an animal wouldn’t–”

“An animal would have no reason to do that,” Shane concluded. “So…”

“There’s a possibility the animal was so large and strong that, maybe in the initial struggle–because we did see that John struggled–it mauled at John’s face and neck first. And then the evisceration would be afterwards. But… I don’t know, it seems like overkill even for an angry animal. I’m still looking into other animals that live near here that could have the strength to do that.”

Shane thought about that. “Besides a bear… maybe a mountain lion or… wolf, or coyote?”

“Something with claws,” Ryan murmured. 

“Okay,” Shane nodded. At least Ryan was considering the possibility of it being an animal. Maybe the bear was just too easy of an explanation. It could be more complicated than that. Wolves were supposed to be really smart. It could have been one of those.

“Any other ideas?” Shane asked. 

Ryan shuffled through his papers. One of them was just a list of people. Presumably people that were connected to John in some way. 

“I don’t really think it was a person who did that,” Ryan said hesitantly. “The injuries were too… I mean, if it was something caused by a knife or a weapon, I think Dr. Young and Katie–the mortician–would be able to recognize it. But if you were looking at the amount of overkill, that theory would make sense. Someone who was so angry at John that they wanted to kill him might have gone overboard and done all that. But… even someone influenced by stimulants…”

“It’s a short time frame they’d have,” Shane admitted. “Even if they attacked as soon as he hung up on us, that wasn’t a lot of time. To kill him, make all those marks on his floor, and escape is a lot. All without leaving a single bloody footprint.”

“So, you get the problem,” Ryan said. “If it was an animal, it’s overkill. If it was a human, it’s almost impossible for them to do it in that time.”

“Okay…” Shane said, suddenly realizing this was usually the part in Ryan’s theories where he presented something completely nonsensical and tried to argue for it as the most likely possibility.

“So, I’m thinking some kind of… look, okay, I know you think creatures like Bigfoot–”

“Okay, I’m done,” Shane interrupted, moving to stand up.

“Shut up and listen!” Ryan yelled, grabbing Shane’s arm and pulling him back down. “Look, people have reported things like, pets going missing, property being damaged, and even some sightings–”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go with aliens,” Shane said, reluctantly looking at Ryan’s next page: something clearly printed off those conspiracy forums that he spent way too much of his time on. 

Ryan was silent for a beat too long. Shane barked out a laugh. “Were aliens going to be the next theory?”

“You–fucker, if you’d just listen to my reasoning–” Ryan said angrily.

Shane leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Alright then. Tell me about your Bigfoot and alien theories.”

Ryan clammed up, shuffling through his papers. “I’m still working on this, okay?” he said finally. “Just… I need to talk to some more people. Read up on some more things. I was hoping to talk to more of the neighbors and John’s friends, but I crashed after a couple hours of research–”

“A couple _hours_?” Shane repeated incredulously. “Ryan, when did you go to sleep?”

Ryan shook his head. “Shane, if I wait until tomorrow to talk to his neighbors, everyone’s going to be affected by the article.”

Shane considered that. “I mean, most of his neighbors already know he’s dead.”

“But they might have some ideas, or information, and if they get this big publicity piece in the paper about the bear, that’s all they’re going to think about,” Ryan said. “They might not mention something because they won’t think it’s important.”

Okay, Shane could see that. And he was guessing Ryan was about to ask him to help him out with this project of his. But that brought Shane to another thought.

“Are you even supposed to be working on this?” Shane asked.

Ryan scowled and started obsessively organizing his folder. “I mean… nobody’s told me not to.”

“Because they don’t know you’re working on it.”

“...pretty much.”

Shane smiled even despite how much he knew it would annoy Ryan. “You know, if someone sees two deputies coming to talk to them, they’re probably less likely to think much about it.”

Ryan shot him an annoyed look. “So are you going to gloat about this before or after you help me?”

Shane grinned. “Before, during, and after, baby.”

Ryan grimaced. “Don’t call me baby.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ryan was feeling anxious as they drove back to the trailer park. Finding John dead had only occurred last night, but he had been so busy since then. He had learned so little, and he could almost feel the key clues and details of the case slipping out of his hands. He needed to know everything, and he was running out of time to get his answers.

Ryan almost felt bad about knocking on doors this late at night, but this was the only moment to get the neighbors’ mostly-unbiased words before the news story ruined everything. He had to make the most of this opportunity. And he was lucky enough to have Shane with him, not only to help him seem more legitimate, but also for… moral support. Ryan didn’t want to admit it, but he felt safer with Shane around, even if he was probably mostly useless.

“Alright, so we’ve already talked to Kevin and his friends,” Ryan said as he parked the patrol car just past John’s trailer.

“I talked to his other neighbor too,” Shane said.

Ryan shut off the engine and looked to Shane in surprise. “You did? When?”

“She came out after you left.”

God damn it, Ryan missed it. That would have been the perfect moment to conduct an informal interview. He should have stayed around longer. 

“What did she say?” he asked.

Shane shrugged. “Uh, she said a bear broke her fence. Or, I guess some kind of animal maybe, since it could be something else too. I thought it might have been the same thing, since I saw animal tracks in John’s garden.”

Okay, Ryan needed to add those things to the map he was putting together of the “bear”-related sightings in the area. He had some so far–a very incomplete picture, he was sure, but it was hard to compile everything related to the thing that attacked John when he couldn’t publically ask for witnesses to come forward. He was still doing his best considering his limitations. There had been scattered reports of bear sightings, although half of them were more than a few months old. Usually Sheriff Carson ignored them because they never caused any problems worse than rooting through garbage and spooking people.

Ryan and Shane got out of the patrol car and stood still in front of John’s trailer for a moment. Almost a full twenty-four hours later, and the place had a much different feeling to it. Empty and forlorn. 

Shane pointed out a trailer at least fifty yards away from John’s. “That’s the one.”

Ryan squinted at the rest of the trailers in the distance. While Kevin’s trailer was right across the gravel road from John’s, the others were all a lot farther away. John’s neighbors might not have heard anything after all. Well, apart from Nate. Then again, if both neighbors on either side of John had some kind of encounter or experience with the… thing, then there was a chance the others did too.

“Let’s get to it,” Ryan said.

The first door they knocked on revealed a very tired old man who insisted, “I don’t see nothin’ ‘round here,” and shut the door on them. 

The second door was an even older man who was very upset they interrupted the last ten minutes of his movie. He at least told them he had heard another neighbor complaining about a bear–the woman Shane had talked with earlier.

“Yeah, Miz Lizzie came over yellin’ about the damages,” the old man said. “I told her I’d help her out fixin’ it soon. Y’all boys gonna come out and help too?”

“No, uh, we’re busy with the Sheriff,” Shane said.

“Uh huh,” he said. “Well, it’d go awful faster with a couple more hands to help.”

“Maybe talk with Kevin and Nate and Tyrone about it,” Ryan said. 

“Oh, yeah…” the guy said, peering in the direction of their trailer. 

The third, fourth, and fifth neighbors wouldn't open their doors, but the sixth and final one did. 

It was a young mom with a baby asleep in her arms. She was rocking the baby gently and looked exhausted, but she still opened her door for them with a small smile. 

“Sorry to bother you at such a late hour,” Ryan said, keeping his voice low to avoid waking the baby. “We’re just checking on all the neighbors around here. We've been getting reports of unusual things happening around the area. Noises, damages, anything like that.”

The woman nodded. “Yeah,” she says, her voice soft. “Well, I don't know. I always see animal tracks around here and try to keep inside. Out here, you hear things like coyotes and owls all the time. It’s scary sometimes, especially when it’s storming and the trailer’s shaking from it all.” She hugged her baby closer to her chest. “I've been wanting to move to town for a while, since it's safer, but even then you see things.”

“Like what?” Shane prompted.

“Well, just last week while I was on the way to the store, I saw this deer acting all funny. Kept trying to run at my car. My engine was acting up, making this awful racket, so the last thing I needed was to hit a deer.”

Ryan nodded. “Glad you're safe.”

The woman sighed. “Yeah. But, you know, anything can happen. I always think the safest thing is just to stay indoors and ignore whatever you hear outside.”

“Has there been anything out of the ordinary out here then?” Ryan said

She shook her head. “Not that I've seen, sorry.”

“Alright.” Ryan said.

“That's good,” Shane added. “I hope you and the little guy stay safe out here. If anything happens, the sheriff’s department is just a call away.”

The woman smiled. “Thank you.”

“Goodnight,” Shane said as she closed the door. 

And that was it for this trailer park. Ryan and Shane started the walk back to John's trailer. Ryan sighed. 

“Well, we learned nothing new,” Ryan mused. “Just the neighbor Lizzie with her fence. And Nate.”

“At least we’ve confirmed that they’re all doing okay,” Shane said. “If Sheriff Carson hears about what we did, we can tell her we were just checking on everyone.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. They got back to their patrol car and Ryan started the engine and drove off.

“Where to now?” Shane asked. “His friends?”

Ryan frowned as he thought about where they were going next. “John had plenty of coworkers from working in logging, but he also, uh, wasn’t really the kind of guy that made friends easily.”

“Can’t imagine why, with his amazing personality,” Shane said.

Ryan felt kind of bad for laughing at that, but… well, it was true. From all of their experiences with the guy, John was kind of a dick. “Yeah, but he did have one coworker who was pretty much his best friend. Hung out with him on weekends, went out for drinks together. This guy is a bit more social; he has a Facebook page where he talks about pretty much everything. I went through it earlier today, but there wasn’t anything that struck me as odd.” Just a middle aged guy living life. Plenty of posts with John, but nothing that indicated John was facing any kind of trouble.

“So who is it?”

“His name’s Rudy Stokes,” Ryan said. “I think he’s been a logger as long as John has.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rudy Stokes was a far more pleasant guy than John. His greeting alone–a boisterous “Come on in! I’ve got coffee!”–was so friendly that Shane wondered why a guy like him put up with a crabby guy like John. And yeah, he shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but the sheer number of times John would call the sheriff’s office yelling about Kevin and Nate and Tyrone was enough to make Shane not like the guy.

“Late night you’re pulling, huh?” Rudy said, pouring them all cups of coffee. They had settled in Rudy’s living room. His log cabin was about twice the distance from the town as John’s trailer, all by itself at the base of a mountain. It was small and cozy inside, full of crude wooden crafts and animal skins that Rudy probably had hunted and made himself, seeing as how he had a gun cabinet in the corner. 

“We work the night shift,” Ryan explained. 

“Oh! That’d make sense!” Rudy laughed. “What brings you all the way out here? Lookin’ for something?”

“Sort of,” Shane said. Fuck, it didn’t seem like Rudy was aware that John was dead yet. How did you break it to a guy that his best friend was dead? He’d never done that before. 

“We just wanted to ask you some things,” Ryan said. 

“Uh-oh,” Rudy said, his tone still joking. He took a big sip of his coffee. “What’s going on, then? Something I can help with, or—”

“We, um,” Ryan said. “Yesterday… last night… we went by John Marshall’s home.”

“Ah,” Rudy said. “What’s going on with ol’ John now? He get himself into trouble? I was wonderin’ why he hadn’t come by.”

Ryan took a breath to talk, and then let it out. He wasn’t looking at Rudy anymore, Shane noticed. God, this was going to be hard no matter how they tried to say it.

Shane spoke up, “Rudy… I’m sorry to have to tell you this but… John is dead.”

Rudy’s smile fell from his face. He blinked, first in confusion, then it looked like he was starting to process those words. “But he—” he said. “He was… He. W—who killed him?”

“It was a wild animal attack,” Shane said. “I’m sorry, Rudy.”

Rudy carefully set his coffee mug down on his table. He was silent for a while, staring at nothing in particular. “I just saw him… yesterday morning,” he said, choking slightly on his words. “At work. He was so… I can’t believe this.”

Shane glanced over at Ryan. Ryan was leaning forward, watching Rudy. Shane rubbed his hands together. He didn’t exactly know how to keep going with this. It didn’t feel like a great time to ask the guy questions about his deceased friend.

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” Ryan said. “Sheriff Carson is already taking steps to make sure the animal that hurt John doesn’t hurt anyone else.” At that, Rudy looked up. He wasn’t crying yet, but he looked like he was about ten seconds away from doing so. 

“Yeah,” he said hollowly. “God damn. You know, last thing I said to him was ‘Let’s go hunting soon.’ If it was an animal that got him… I can make good on that promise.”

Shane nodded, but inside he was kind of reeling at that. Pleasantville was full of people who went hunting, but they were all a little too enthusiastic about their sport for Shane’s comfort. Kind of made Shane a bit nervous, listening to them talking about hunting deer and game. A few of the deputies were avid hunters too, but thankfully Ryan wasn’t.

“We actually were coming by to ask you about when you and John were last together,” Ryan said. Shane held his breath, hoping Ryan chose his words carefully. “Some of his neighbors said they’ve been noticing—or hearing about damages around their homes.”

Rudy’s forehead scrunched up. “Yeah…” he said. “Yeah, John was talkin’ about that at work. Messed up his garden. Shame, ‘cause his pumpkins—but yeah, now that’s… don’t really matter now.”

“Did he see the animal?” Ryan asked.

Rudy made a face as he thought. “No, I don’t think he did. Probably woulda shot at it if he did. He keeps his guns locked up, same as me, since, y’know, there’s kids in that neighborhood o’his. But because of the kids, he’da shot at it. To keep ‘em safe.”

“Yeah,” Shane said. Well, that was probably it. They should—

“Have _you_ noticed anything strange around here lately?” Ryan said.

“Huh? Me?” Rudy said.

“Yeah, just…” Ryan gestured around the living room. “Anything like… damages, or… or like what John saw with his garden.”

Rudy pondered that for a few seconds. Then he broke into a small smile. “Nah, not really,” he said. “Living out here, nature’s the one in charge. Ya get used to not always knowing what’s going on. Could be living in a bear’s backyard, and the only thing keepin’ me from getting eaten is those guns over there.” He pointed out his gun cabinet.

Shane could tell that vague answer frustrated the hell out of Ryan. He took over before Ryan could press for more and make Rudy sad again.

“Well, thanks for telling us what John told you,” Shane said, standing up. “We’re sorry this has happened.” Ryan remained seated for a few seconds, but soon he was getting up too. He started towards the door as Rudy also got to his feet.

“Thanks for telling me about… about ‘im,” Rudy said, his voice growing heavy again. “I couldn’t’ve read that in the paper, or heard it at work. He and I were like brothers.” He went to open the door for them. He seemed like he might be a bit eager to get them out, and when Shane glanced at his face again, he could see tears gathering in his eyes. 

“Take care,” Shane said. 

Rudy nodded. “You boys take care too.”

And they left the cabin and returned to the patrol car. Ryan turned the car around and drove carefully down Rudy’s gravel driveway. Shane looked in the side mirror to see Rudy was standing in his door, watching them leave.

“That was creepy,” Ryan finally said as they got back onto the paved road.

“What, his promise to hunt down the thing that killed John?” Shane asked. “Kind of intense, but I can get it—”

“No, I mean,” Ryan sighed, sounding annoyed. “His hunting trophies everywhere, his complete dismissal of things happening around him—”

“He’s a hunter, Ryan, they’re all like that.”

“You’d think, if you’re living out here in the middle of nowhere, you’d pay a bit more attention to what’s going on around you.” Ryan said.

“Look,” Shane said. “We can’t all be jumping at every single bump in the night like you. Rudy lives way out here; he must hear dozens of noises every night. Statistically speaking, there are plenty of animals out there that aren’t bears that make noises. Even if he did tell us about them, it’d just be unnecessary information.”

Ryan groaned. “I just—I don’t know, something about him just made me feel on edge.”

To be perfectly honest, Shane thought he was a bit creepy too. But he thought he’d better not bring it up now when Ryan was driving. So instead, he said, “Well, you got what you wanted, right?”

“I guess,” Ryan said. 

“Then we can get back to the station, where it’s safer, and you can write all of this up. Work on your theories.” And Shane could have a break from all this action. Although he did want to see where Ryan was going next with this. He’d help out again when Ryan needed him.

Silence fell between them, and the lull in conversation was filled by the hum of the engine and the rattle of the car as they hit rough patches on the pavement. The road connecting remote people like Rudy to the rest of the town was narrow, with trees looming over on either side. As Shane looked out the front window into the barely-lit darkness, he almost expected to see… what? A bear? The bear that killed John?

But there was nothing. The road finally met up with a wider road, which led to town. They were very nearly to the station when the radio crackled with a call. Both he and Ryan jumped at the noise.

Shane answered it. “Pleasantville sheriff’s office, this is Deputy Madej.”

He was met with a very long groan. “I’m… need a ride home,” said a muffled voice. 

Ah. A drunk. “Where are you, sir, we’ll be right over,” Shane said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh sorry about this chapter taking longer to come out. I got hit with three double shifts at the hospital on top of a very full week and it kinda put a halt on all my writing. eh, thats life sometimes :3


	6. Chapter 6

Ryan watched in amusement as Shane tried unsuccessfully, again and again, to convince the drunk guy to get in the patrol car. The guy had sat down on the curb outside the Stone Kitchen as he was stubbornly insisting that he didn’t want to get arrested and he just needed a ride. All the while Joe, the cook, leaned against the outside wall smoking a cigarette, useless. Well, to be fair, Ryan wasn’t being much help either. 

“I jus’ need a ride,” the guy said for at least the tenth time since they’d arrived.

“Yes, we’re just giving you a ride,” Shane said, his patience starting to wear thin. “Just let us know your address, and we’ll take you right there.”

“Turn off the cop,” the guy said.

“What?”

“Just… I jus’ wanna normal drive.”

“That’s what we’re doing,” Shane said. “We’re just driving you home. What’s your address?”

The guy let out a long groan and shook his head. “I ain’t got nothin’ at home.”

Shane rubbed his forehead with a grimace and looked back at Ryan. Ryan rolled down the window and called out to them, “If he has his license on him, that’ll have his address.”

“Right,” Shane said. He turned back to the guy. “Sir, can I see your license?”

“Uhh…. no. Don’t wanna.”

Ryan dropped his face onto the steering wheel so Shane couldn’t see him laughing. When he finally had a handle on his laughter and he looked up again, Shane was sitting down on the curb next to the guy with his deputy uniform shirt off. 

“See? The cop is turned off,” Shane was saying. “Just a normal guy who wants to help you home.”

The drunk guy squinted suspiciously at Shane, and then looked at the patrol car. “Uh huh.”

“So what’s your name? What’s your address?”

“...178 Locus’ Boulevard.”

“What?” Shane said. Ryan frowned at that. The guy was probably saying Locust Boulevard, but there was no street with that name in Pleasantville, or anywhere near it.

Ryan opened the door and stepped out to the curb. “Sir,” he said, crouching down to look at the drunk guy. “Are you visiting from out of town?”

“Yea, I’m from Murray County,” the guy said.

Shane groaned. “So you need us to take you to where you’re staying,” he said.

“Uh huh.”

“Great,” Ryan said. He reached for the guy’s arm and hoisted him up to his feet. “Pleasantville Inn or Maple Valley Motel?”

“Uh, Maple Valley Motel,” the guy said as Ryan hauled him over to the patrol car. Shane opened the rear passenger door and moved out of the way so Ryan could help the guy inside. The guy still fell onto his face as he got into the backseat. Shane shut the door behind him. 

“Well, that was fun,” he said in a voice soft enough that the guy wouldn’t hear.

Ryan shook his head. He glanced back at where Joe had been standing. He was still there, hiding his face with his hand as he lit another cigarette. Probably laughing at them. Whatever, it _was_ kind of funny, just annoying that it happened right in the middle of Ryan trying to work on the case.

He got into the driver’s seat and looked back to see if the drunk guy had put on his seatbelt. He was still lying down where he’d collapsed. Maybe he’d passed out.

“Alright, let’s get him to the Maple Valley Motel,” Ryan said. 

It wasn’t a long drive to the motel, and the route was lined by yellow glowing street lamps and buildings with darkened windows on either side of the road. No place for bears or monsters to hide. Just regular old downtown Pleasantville in the night time. Ryan had seen it a thousand times before. He felt more relaxed as he drove.

“Sorry,” the guy said from the backseat as Ryan slowed down to take a right turn. The drunk guy had sat up, and was rubbing at his face. 

Shane twisted in his seat to see him. “What are you in Pleasantville for, Mr.—what’s your name again?”

“Huh? Oh, I'm Frank. I’m just here fishin’. Didn't have no luck yesterday.”

“Sorry to hear that. Better luck tomorrow,” Shane said.

“Yeah,” Frank said. “S’nicer up here than in Murray. Quieter.”

Ryan held his tongue at that. No need to bring up the event that was going to be reported in the paper the next morning anyway. Frank didn’t seem to notice the lull in conversation, and it wasn’t long before Ryan was pulling up in front of the Maple Valley Motel. Shane and Ryan both got out of the patrol car to help Frank out.

“Thanks,” Frank said, walking unsteadily towards the doors. He stuffed a hand in his pocket, presumably to get his motel key, and almost fell over but caught himself on the wall. 

Ryan hesitated. “Do you need help finding—”

“Nah, I’m fine!” Frank called. He took his key out and tried it in the first door he came to. Then he started shuffling to the next door.

“You sure?” Shane asked. 

Frank didn’t reply. Ryan sighed and got back into the patrol car and, after a moment, so did Shane. Ryan started the engine. They waited in the motel parking lot for a minute while Frank tried his key on two more doors before finally getting the right one. Shane was wheezing with laughter as Ryan drove the car out of the parking lot.

“Well, now if the sheriff asks why we took the car out, we’ve got an excuse,” Shane said. 

“Yeah,” Ryan murmured. 

“Hey, Ryan, I’ll write up the report about this thing, when we get back,” Shane said. “You can just get back to work on your… uh, your findings. And theories.”

Ryan felt a small smile tugging at his face. Shane was at least being kind of supportive about this. Having him around definitely helped Ryan feel more comfortable driving through the more wooded areas of Pleasantville. And it made him feel less like an obsessed crime investigator while talking to John’s neighbors and to Rudy. More like he was actually getting somewhere.

Even if… he really hadn’t discovered anything new.

Ryan shook that doubt out of his mind. He focused on the road and on driving back. He could examine and ponder the things he’d learned once they were safely back at the station.

“Glad he didn’t, uh, get sick in the backseat,” Shane said, his tone upbeat. 

“Ugh,” Ryan shuddered just thinking about that. “I’ve had to deal with that before,” he said. “Before you were on the force. Back when Brent was still on night shift with me.”

“Yeah? What was that like?”

“Disgusting,” Ryan said. “Brent actually had to take the car to a professional car cleaner in Murray. It was so gross. Nobody could stand the smell. We all had to use our personal cars for a couple days.”

“Huh,” Shane said. 

They arrived at the station by then. Ryan and Shane got out of the car and started for the front door. As Ryan was reaching for the handle with his keys, a loud animal cry suddenly split through the night, making him jump and drop the keys on the ground.

“What was that?” Ryan said, his heart pounding as he whirled around.

“Probably a deer,” Shane said. He reached down and grabbed Ryan’s keys off the ground.

“Deer don’t make noises like that,” Ryan said.

“Then it was a squirrel.”

“Quit fucking around, Shane!”

“Okay, sorry,” Shane said. He unlocked the door and switched on the lights, then turned and waited for Ryan to go in first.

Ryan squinted around at the darkness, which was rather poorly illuminated by the lamp over the parking lot. Then he went inside. Shane handed him his keys and shut the door firmly behind them.

“I don’t know, it could have been a fox,” Shane said. “Or… hm, do raccoons make noises?”

Ryan ignored him and sat down at his desk. He got his folder out again and got a new sheet of paper to write down everything he had learned that night. 

Okay, so… first things first: John’s next-door neighbor, Lizzie, had her fence broken by an animal around the same time that John’s garden was damaged. Definitely relevant. Something large and strong, causing property damage. Ryan needed to find those reports of other similar damages and find out if anyone had seen the animal causing it. Or if they had seen tracks. There had probably been tracks in John’s garden, but Ryan didn’t get a proper look at them, and they had most likely been ruined by the other deputies going over to John’s home.

“Did you take pictures of the damage in John’s garden?” Ryan asked Shane, looking up at where Shane was sitting across from him.

Shane was staring at his phone. “Uh, I don’t remember. The sheriff took the camera back once I was done. Hey, here’s a video of nocturnal animal noises.”

An owl noise started playing loudly from Shane’s phone. Ryan dropped his face into his hands. “It wasn’t an owl, Shane. Cut that out. Do you think the camera’s in her office?”

“Probably.” The video started playing a new animal call, horrible and loud but not the one Ryan had heard. “What about that one? It’s—whoa, that’s a weird looking deer!”

Ryan dug his fingers into his temples and took a deep breath. The sheriff didn’t have any photographs printed out in the official case file that Ryan had taken from her desk earlier. She probably hadn’t had time to get to doing that. Or maybe she wasn’t planning on doing it at all. 

“I need to get those pictures,” Ryan said, more to himself because Shane was entirely engrossed in the video of the animal noises. 

“This is a badger call, Ryan,” Shane said. “Didn’t it sound like this?”

“I don’t care about the animal noise,” Ryan said. He stood up. “I’m going to try and find the camera, alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” Shane said, leaning back in his chair. The video went on to play another type of owl hooting. 

And for the second time that night, Ryan returned to Sheriff Carson’s office. He glanced around the shelves, but he couldn’t see the camera anywhere. With slightly shaking hands, he reached for her desk drawers.

They were locked.

“Fuck,” Ryan whispered. Okay, either the camera was in the sheriff’s desk somewhere or… it could have still been in her car. Alright, so getting that might take a bit more time. Damn it. 

Ryan left the office and walked back to his desk. Shane’s animal noise video had ended, but he was still looking at his phone. Ryan sat down and tried to remember what else he needed to write down. The other neighbors… they didn’t really have anything important to say. Specifically, no one else had property damages like in John and Lizzie’s cases, and no one had actual sightings anything like what Nate reported. 

Okay, then… then there was Rudy. Ryan thought back over their conversation. Rudy had seen John at work, and John had mentioned the garden to him. And… that was it, wasn’t it? Ryan set his pen down on the table and rubbed at his face. 

For a moment, his mind lingered on the memory of walking out of Rudy’s place, leaving behind the man and his guns and his promises to hunt down the animal that got John… Ryan shivered. No, that wasn’t it. Rudy was… creepy, for sure. But Shane was right. He was a hunter, and plenty of hunters were like that. He was emotional from losing his best friend. There was nothing else down that train of thought.

Right?

Shane started playing another video of animal sounds. Ryan shot a glare at him.

“Don’t forget the report,” he said. 

“I won’t,” Shane said. “Hey, this is a coyote call, Ryan. Isn’t it cool?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Normally, Shane waited until he woke up in the mid-afternoon to read the newspaper. This morning, however, he was curious about the article about John and the announcement for the bear hunt. He knew Sheriff Carson had written an official press statement, but Shane had forgotten about it the previous night. He’d been too distracted with everything going on that, by the time Ryan was putting Sheriff Carson’s file back into her office, it was too late to read it. 

He was kind of hoping that the article wouldn’t mention him and Ryan. He really didn’t want that kind of attention. Most of the people in his building only knew that he worked during the nights, and had no idea he was a deputy for Pleasantville. He’d prefer that things stay that way. He couldn’t stand the idea of people knocking on his door to ask him for law enforcement related things while he was off duty.

Shane made himself some decaf coffee and tidied up around his apartment while he waited for the newspaper to arrive. Unfortunately, he had just cleaned his apartment a couple days before, so the place was already neat. There was the exception of the laundry basket that had been filling up recently, but Shane had been planning on ignoring it until he ran out of clean socks. Shane paced around for a few minutes, sipping at his coffee. It felt like the laundry basket was accusing him of something. 

Then he groaned. 

“When does the newspaper even get here?” he grumbled to himself. He stomped off to find his laundry detergent, and then came back to grab his keys and phone. Then he walked over to the laundry basket, picked it up, and started hauling it out of his apartment. The stairs were clear of other residents, so Shane dragged the basket down to the ground level, letting it bounce against each step.

He pushed open the door to the laundry room. Miss Seung, one of Shane’s neighbors whose name he actually knew, was sitting on the bench in the middle of the room. Three of the six washers were running. 

Miss Seung looked up as Shane entered. Only then, when she turned to face him, did Shane realize she was holding a newspaper.

“Where did you get that?” he blurted out.

Miss Seung looked confused for a second. 

“I mean, the newspaper,” Shane said, gesturing at the paper in her hands. 

Miss Seung’s mouth opened in a small O shape. “Newspaper delivery,” she said.

Shane stared at her and the newspaper. Then, realization hit him like a train. Fuck, he forgot. Since he was off his normal routine, he hadn’t remembered that he usually went down to pick up his mail—and the newspaper—from his mailbox in the afternoons when he woke up. It wouldn’t get delivered to his door. 

“Right,” Shane said awkwardly. “Uh. Anything good?”

Miss Seung’s face grew tight with concern. “There was a bear attack,” she said solemnly. She held up the front page of the newspaper so Shane could see. There, in big bold letters, were the words **_SHERIFF CARSON TO LEAD HUNT FOR KILLER BEAR_**. 

Well. So that was the angle the Buzz was running. And Sheriff Carson had approved that? Shane had assumed, judging by her interest in containing the incident, that she wouldn’t want this kind of public call for blood. When Ryan had told Shane that she was going to get people together to hunt it, he had assumed some of the day shift deputies. Not… the actual townsfolk of Pleasantville.

“Scary, isn’t it?” Miss Seung said, turning the newspaper back to the page she was reading before Shane came in. “I’m staying indoors until they find that bear.”

“Yeah, that seems like a good idea,” Shane said. He took his laundry basket over to the row of washers. He quickly got to work separating his clothes into two loads, stuffing them into two of the empty washers. He was going to go and get that newspaper out of his mailbox as soon as the loads were started.

“Do you hunt?” Miss Seung said.

“What?” Shane said, halting in the middle of measuring his detergent.

“The Sheriff is asking for volunteers to join the bear hunt,” Miss Seung explained. 

“I’m not doing that,” Shane said quickly. “I don’t, uh, I don’t hunt. Don’t want to. I wouldn’t trust me with a gun.” Technically, he could take the test to carry a firearm while on duty, but he had no interest in doing so. He was an awkward person and he was more likely to hurt himself with a gun than anything else. Ryan had passed that test, although he tended to forget his gun in his desk when they went out. 

Come to think of it… that was something he needed to bring up with Ryan that night. For safety reasons, of course. If they ran into the bear while driving around, it could help to have the gun. 

Or they could just get in the car and floor it.

Shane shut the doors on the washers and started them. He watched the water pour in for a minute, letting his mind relax at the familiar motions. Then he left the laundry room to walk to the wall of mailboxes beside the landlord’s door. Sure enough, there was his newspaper, crammed into the little mailbox as it always was in the afternoons.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> _Pleasantville logger and lifetime recreational hunter John Marshall was discovered in his home yesterday in the Rocky Park Trailer Village following a fatal and tragic bear attack. Pictured to the left is Marshall (image courtesy of Gray Logging Co.)._
> 
> _There have been several reported sightings of a bear along Rocky Park Road, and the bear in question is considered to still be roaming the area. Nearby residents are advised to remain indoors at night and to call the Pleasantville sheriff’s office if they encounter the bear. Sheriff Carson strongly discourages residents from attempting to seek out or engage the animal on their own. “This animal is vicious, and should not be approached by an individual,” Carson said in an interview shortly following the discovery of the bear’s dangerous nature. “Group efforts to locate and eliminate the threat should be carefully organized.”_
> 
> _Sheriff Carson is requesting that any skilled hunters willing to accept the risk to pursue this dangerous animal should contact the Pleasantville sheriff’s office by 5:00 pm, August 2. The search for the bear will take place tomorrow, August 3, at 9:00 am sharp. Sheriff Carson will be coordinating the hunt._
> 
> _John Andrew Marshall, age 62, was a Pleasantville native and an upstanding member of the community. He was a dedicated employee at Gray Logging, where he worked for 43 years. John was a regular face at community events, and he committed himself to maintaining peace and order. He enjoyed hunting and gardening, and specifically growing large pumpkins for the Pleasantville Halloween Festival. John is survived by his brother James, and leaves behind beloved friends at Gray Logging. Funeral and memorial arrangements are in order, and will be announced soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure whether to include the article in this chapter or not. I think it works alright. Things are still moving a bit slow, but the investigation will pick up the pace very soon. ~~And the boys will start sharing some very interesting moments together soon as well.~~


End file.
